Is Minimalism an Art Form?

October 24, 2017

The last three weeks have been interesting to say the least. My daughter had surgery on her kidneys and bladder, then a week later I had surgery on my foot. To top that, I don’t cope well with anaesthetic as I’m allergic to all the drugs the doctors use, including pain-killers. Even though I’m still off my foot, I’m feeling pretty good now and couldn’t wait to write this blog.

I may be feeling pretty good, but very sadly there has been an absence in my housework, and my house is falling down around me. You can’t see my sad and frustrated face, but it’s definitely there.

Anyway, as they say your home reflects your personality, mine reflects a lot of different personalities. My family love living in their home, and in saying that, they love to make a lot of mess. Oftentimes leaving most of it for me to clean up. No can do right now and it can be quite distressing.

Believe it or not I actually enjoy cleaning and take pride in my home and things, but a certain man in my life isn’t as fussy. He’s really good at the basics, but if he had to take care of the home in general it would end up a disaster zone. Lately, it’s fallen on his shoulders to take care of the everyday details and even though he’s trying his best, he doesn’t know where most things go. To a degree, it’s quite funny (and a little bit sad).

In all the years that we’ve been together we had accumulated a great deal of stuff until I decided that was it. I had had enough of trying to organize the clutter without looking like a complete hoarder, only to find myself failing miserably the second the children came home from school and my partner from work.

That was it….toys had to be culled, wardrobes dissected, kitchen crockery reassessed, and general items that had neither purpose nor beauty was either thrown out or donated. We had bags upon bags filled with goodies to go.

I wouldn’t call myself a minimalist, but I certainly had ideas that would fall in the category of minimalism that day when i decided everything had to go. I wanted to be able to dust without knocking ornaments off shelves, or vacuum without having to dodge old barbie shoes or beads (OMG my pet hate, beads ugghhh) that the girls didn’t appear to want. I hope!!

Getting back on track, I started to wonder what exactly was minimalism. Simply having images in my head of all the amazing homes that looked beautiful, open and organized by people who I imagined had a tendency to be at least slightly OCD wasn’t enough. Were these designers spectacularly organized or was there a set of rules you had to live by? I don’t desire to be strictly minimalist in the sense. I just want to borrow their skill set to achieve a cleaner, junk free home. You could call it organization 101 but their way of life is more about psychology than just organizing. Or is it.

According to Joshua Becker at becomingminimalist.com ” Minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from it.” Short and succinct and beautifully said. It’s a good philosophy to live by.

When I started reading about minimalism I had such a good laugh at what some people thought it was. My top 5 commandments for humorous minimalism are:

-If you’re rich, you can afford and may very well be a minimalist.

-If clutter makes you crazy, you might be a minimalist.

-If you don’t drive a car, you might be a minimalist.

-If shopping at Walmart makes you feel cringy, you might be a minimalist.

-To be a minimalist, you must own less than 100 things.

The list of outrageous expectations is crazy….but funny. Most people would never be able to live up to such strict guidelines if they were in fact real. So, besides the crazy stuff, what is it really?

Everything has beauty if you look at it from the right perspective. But when you fill a room with too many belongings, the senses are overwhelmed by too much detail and the things that should be the main focus of a space, are lost and nothing stands out.

Minimalism, it turns out is much more than just psychology. Its appreciating art and connection. The space becomes the work of art. Concentrating on a few beautiful functional pieces whose use and position has to be carefully planned. Lots of natural light as well as soft artificial lighting, wooden tones and mostly a neutral monochrome palette. The key is to create a symmetry between home and space and nature which in turn creates a place that you can find peace and rejuvenation. It denotes its connection with nature, the ability to admire that connection, and to not let unnecessary objects distract that space with its connection. The simplicity of minimalism reflects a certain amount of spiritual connection with one’s surroundings.

I really love this concept…..

I really really love this feminine take on minimalism.
Till next time, love where your feet are planted xx